


nothing we can share

by cygnes



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types, True Detective
Genre: Gen, Implied Murder, Mentions of alcoholism, Vigilantism, mentions of animal death, mentions of child abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-15
Updated: 2014-03-15
Packaged: 2018-01-15 19:56:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1317334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cygnes/pseuds/cygnes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A middle-aged bartender picks up a teenage hitchhiker. They talk about hunting and go their separate ways. </p><p>(Rust, Abigail, and a few miles of desolate road.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	nothing we can share

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on [tumblr](http://manzanas-amargas.tumblr.com/post/79619327570/fic-nothing-we-can-share).
> 
> Unrelated to the other Hannibal/True Detective crossover I wrote. Set in 2013, shortly after the end of season one of both series.
> 
> Title from the song “[Master Hunter](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fO2gm29rI7E)" by Laura Marling, which I associate with both Abigail & Rust for different reasons.

The girl standing by the side of the road can’t be more than eighteen. It’s the wrong stretch of pavement to pick up johns, and she doesn’t look the type for that. Hitchhiking, more likely—she doesn’t have her thumb out, but she isn’t walking, either. Rust slows his truck to a roll as he’s about to pass her.

"Looking for a ride?" he calls.

"Sure," the girl says, despite the fact it was clearly phrased as a yes or no question. Rust stops and leans over to open the passenger door. The girl hefts her duffel bag as she climbs in. Heavy stuff. Her hair is in a neat braid going down one side of her head, hanging forward over one shoulder. The only trace of impracticality is a filmy flower-print scarf around her neck. Other than that, her clothes are muted colors—earthtones. Not too worn, fairly well-made. Department store rather than thrift shop purchases. She must be running from something other than poverty. The girl glances at the empty beer cans in the backseat and then back at him, as though she hadn’t noticed him examining her.

"Last night," he says by way of explanation. "I’m sober at present, if you’re worried." It’s true. He’s trying to bring himself, bit by bit, back to concentrating on the mundane details of things. That’s hard to do without a clear head.

"I was, a little bit, yeah," she says, smiling. Relief and embarrassment. Rust shifts the pickup back into drive and keeps his eyes on the road.

"Where you headed?" he says, because it seems like the kind of thing he should say to put her at ease. He’s trying to be better about that, too. It takes effort.

"Forward," the girl says with conviction.

"Well, you see somewhere you want to stop, just say," Rust says. "I know that kind of inertia can wear on you." They’re quiet for a few minutes. The girl takes out a book, reads a few pages, puts it away.

"Not a city," she says. It doesn’t seem sudden or abrupt—as though she just spent all that time considering her response during a natural pause in the conversation. "Not the suburbs."

"You want to stay out in the country," Rust says, and it’s not a question at all. She seems a suburban girl, he thinks, turning to look at her for a moment. And her accent’s from somewhere in the Midwest. She’s a long way from home and not going back.

"The hunting’s better," she says. Rust can’t help being a little surprised. You could fit a rifle in that duffel of hers if you broke it down, though.

"What do you hunt?"

"Deer, mostly," she says. He has to shut his eyes for a moment because he knows that if he looks over now he’ll see the girl crowned with antlers and brush. It’s nothing but a long blink to her, though, or maybe she’s doubting his sobriety. The news has brought all that shit back lately—the girls up in Minnesota are still in the headlines. He’s avoided some of the details, but even making a concerted effort, he’s overheard a lot of them from other people’s conversations in gas stations and dives. The work of one man, they say, but Rust has wondered if it’s part of something larger. It’s hard to imagine one man doing so much without at least an organized framework to anchor his psychosis. Even if he knows, _logically_ he knows, that most serial killers do work alone, or with one other person at most.

"Not in season," Rust says, and though this lull in conversation was shorter it seems more like an interruption. "You’ll have to go after smaller game."

"I don’t have much experience with that," the girl says. "Even if I got something, I wouldn’t know how to butcher it."

"Less waiting and more tracking," Rust says. "I used to hunt, myself. Mostly small game. Mostly with a bow."

"Compound?"

"Recurve." His father had said that a recurve bow took longer to master, and learning to use a compound bow would seem simple after that. Rust had never bothered with any kind of archery after he moved back to Texas.

"I’ve heard that’s harder," the girl says. "I wasn’t even very good with a compound bow, and I only used it at a range."

"It’s different than using a firearm. With archery, your whole body’s a part of the weapon." Rust feels a phantom ache across the back of his shoulders, his triceps, from before he got the hang of the posture that would prevent undue strain. Or maybe that’s a real ache he just hadn’t noticed before, seeing as he’s getting to be an old man. "It’s brutal in a more intimate way—an older way." This is the point in most conversations where Marty would say _fuck’s sake, Rust, you sound like a goddamn serial killer_. But the girl seems unperturbed.

"You’ve got to respect what you hunt," she says. From her lips it’s a proverb, something learned by rote before the words themselves had any meaning. "No matter what."

"You don’t respect an animal and you’re going to underestimate it," Rust agrees.

"I’ve seen that mistake made," the girl says, and he knows she isn’t just talking about hunting with a rifle anymore. "And I learned from it." What she’s really saying (Rust can hear it clear as day) is that she doesn’t intend to underestimate him. It sort of clicks right then—a pretty young girl doesn’t wait around on deserted backroads for nothing, and she isn’t hooking. Whatever she’s running from isn’t going to find her out in bumfuck bayou country, and neither are the authorities. Hell, who’d notice a few cruel men gone missing out here, anyway? They’re a dime a dozen, off the grid. Or anywhere, really, but it’s easier to hide if no one knows you exist.

Rust isn’t a good man. Sometimes he’s even a bad one.

"Better to learn from someone else’s mistakes than your own," is all he says.

"I’ve had my share of those, too." He glances at her, and she’s looking out the window. Wistful, maybe—regretful, probably. You don’t get to this kind of calculated vigilantism without some kind of personal reason. Not his business; not relevant unless she decides it is.

Quiet descends, hanging dense between them. It’s a few minutes before either of them speaks again.

"Here’s fine," the girl says. Rust pulls off to the side of the road as much as he can, but it doesn’t have a shoulder on this stretch. The girl climbs down and turns back with a smile as she shuts the door. "Take care." It’s not quite a warning.

"You too."


End file.
